I has evolved, fear me.

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Them: So you support pedophilia and abuse apologism?

although it’s true AO3 does allow all fannish content provided it’s properly warned for, there’s a long history there - of spaces being used by fans until the host decided whatever we were doing was too weird and distasteful and either kicking us off, banning certain content, or changing the nature of the site until it was no longer viable as a host.

you’re referring to the LJ Strikethrough of 2007, which, being an ancient crone, I lived through, and since I was hanging out in the last vestiges of SGA and in bandom, I saw some of the fallout. this was before LJ was sold to the Russians (which is a whole ‘nother story), when it was still owned by Six Apart; in an effort to clean up LJ’s act, Six Apart decided to delete all accounts using tags like underage, incest, rape, etc.

this was supposed to get rid of actual child porn on the site, and I hope it did, but it also targeted fan communities. this was a problem for a couple reasons; for one thing, not every story tagged with these words is in favor of them; for another, these things happen to real people and these personal posts were also potentially in danger of being attacked; for the last one, look, I ain’t into this kind of fic but people write about what people write about, and if it’s fictional and not explicitly banned in the TOS (correct me if I’m wrong; I don’t think written content about this stuff was banned?) then it’s not cool for a content host to just start deleting communities without warning.

but that’s what happened! these deletions were also primarily targeting slash communities, which smacked of some serious homophobia since things were deleted that had nothing to do with any of this kind of content.

eventually someone found out it was this super conservative religious group who’d sent a list of journal names to Six Apart, and who if I remember correctly targeted slash fic on purpose, even after it became clear that the fic was, well, totally fictional. after a while, Six Apart admitted they’d made a mistake and started to reinstate journals, but all of fandom was pretty shaken up.

THEN Boldthrough happened, which was essentially the same debacle several months later, at which point fandom began its long slow migration from LJ to GJ, IJ, and eventually AO3, Twitter, and tumblr.

AO3 was opened in 2008 in response to several incidents, of which Strikethrough was a really intense one. remember, also, that back in 2008 the stigma surrounding fandom was significantly greater and more shameful than it is today, so finding hosts willing to archive fic was difficult unless someone had the dough to pay for server space - often not an option. this was also back when fanfic.net’s HTML restrictions were so great that users couldn’t use any special characters or bold or italicize anything, and it didn’t allow R-rated content, so it was clearly not ideal. in addition, although cease & desist letters were much less common than they were in the early 2000s and before, DMCA takedowns were still a phantom on the horizon.

LONG STORY SHORT, even though pedophilia is reprehensible and I personally cannot stomach fanfic that involves that kind of content, AO3 was founded specially as a safe space for fandom communities that could not find homes elsewhere. it requires warnings precisely for that reason, and if you find a story that is not properly warned, you can alert the admins and get the story labeled appropriately.

In the same way, writing about underage teens getting it on–sometimes with each other, sometimes with adults, sometimes consensually, sometimes not–is not the same as child pornography, nor does reading a fic about Hermione and Snape getting it on while she was his student mean someone thinks that would be a good and/or healthy thing in real life.

Fiction affects reality, but fiction is not reality.  And writing about something does not mean you want to do it in real life, or believe that anyone should.

Let’s take a closer look at that “Ao3 supports pedophilia!” shall we?

1) The only fics I have ever come across that had actual pedophilia (i.e. someone having sex with a child), it was clearly and explicitly abuse.  It was not meant to titillate or arouse.  It was meant to horrify.  It was seldom explicit.

2) There’s a lot more incest, but it is usually portrayed either as explicitly mutually consensual (i.e. Sam/Dean) or as abusive.

3) I’ve been in fandom for a decade and a half.  When people start getting upset at “omg pedophilia, think of the children!” the fics they are usually objecting to aren’t actually pedophilia.  Usually, it is teenagers having sex, especially queer sex.  And people don’t like that, and use pedophilia as an excuse to shame people for writing/reading sex they don’t like.

Let’s look closer at Strikethrough, shall we?  I hope that, if there were any communities of actual pedophiles on LJ, they got taken down, too.  But here are some of the communities that got taken down that were not in any way supporting pedophilia and/or rape and/or incest that got taken down:

1) at least one support community for survivors of sexual abuse.

2) a literary book discussion group that was reading Lolita.

3) lots of slash fanfic communities, for things like Draco/Harry fic set in their fourth year (when both boys would have been 15).

Basically, this very conservative “family values” group hated porn, and they hated queer stuff even more, and used “but think of the children, it’s pedophilia!” to pressure LJ to get rid of huge swathes of things they didn’t like.  And one time taking down the worst of it wasn’t good enough for them.  No, this was step one on a moral crusade.  If you acceded to their demands, all that did was whet their appetite, and soon they would be back with a new list of demands.  This is why the 2007 strikethrough was not an isolated event, but rather one of a series of events, nor was LJ the only website thus targeted.  It starts with anything that can get labelled “pedophilia” or “incest” because that’s low-hanging fruit.  But they use that to go after anything relating to queer teen sexuality.  Then anything with teen sexuality.  Then once the community is already divided and diminished, they go after anything with non-con.  Then whatever is next on their list.  It doesn’t stop until they’ve won the point and nothing but suitably “family-friendly” fics that match their purity test are allowed.

Which is why AO3 has no morality content in their terms of service.  You can’t break copyright beyond fair use (and AO3 has an expansive view of “fair use” and a team of lawyers on call).  You can’t use AO3 for commercial advertising.  And you can’t post ACTUAL child pornography, i.e. the things that are legally prohibited, i.e. actual photographs or videos of actual children (not teens) in sexually explicit positions–you know, the stuff that actually hurts kids.  Other than that?  It’s fair game.  You can post anything you want, and the archive will not judge.  There is no handle for the Moral Majority Family-Friendly Thought Police to latch onto, no cracks they can exploit to divide and conquer.

During this period, Dreamwidth was also targeted by attacking its payment processor. They had to get a new one. These “Warriors” (literally called themselves that!) were totally on board with destroying fandom as a side effect of destroying the parts of fandom they didn’t like.

AO3 and OTW are HUGE, because now we have an organization, with very smart women and a lot of lawyers, that have our back. Fannish history is important, people! It has not always been this way.

that would be really cool! but how long ago was it posted? there were times that she was pretty monotone in too short to ride.

I  believe this is the video.

(Thanks for the ask! Sorry for the late reply.)

I strongly disagree with that idea. Garnet is very much her own character outside of Sapphire and Ruby and while her development may not be as obvious and forefront as, say, Pearl’s or Peridot’s, it’s still happening. Personally, I see it more as a slow burn development similar to Lapis’. 

I think the episode Three Gems and a Baby showed a great deal of Garnet’s vulnerability. Once the reality sunk in that Rose was gone for good, she took it upon herself to harden up and rise as the new leader of the Crystal Gems. I feel this ep shed a lot of light on her stoic and reserved demeanor for most of Season 1. She’s not the same person now as she was in earlier episodes, and her big reveal as a fusion wasn’t the only reason for that change. 

To say that Garnet doesn’t have any character development outside of fusion, would be saying that she possesses no character flaws. But we know that’s not true. Her biggest character flaw (imo) is her occasional dishonesty towards Steven. She withholds information from him, gets heated when he argues with her (when he’s 100% right to do so), and has even lied to him on at least two occasions. This isn’t a trait only unique to Ruby or Sapphire. This is Garnet’s. 

Let’s consider the option that Garnet didn’t lie to Steven regarding Pink Diamond’s shattering. Or, at least, didn’t knowingly lie. She told the truth as she knew it. That means someone else kept information from her– definitely Rose, very likely Pearl. If so, that’s some element of their relationship she’s going to have to come to terms with. We’ve already explored the issues of honesty and trust between Pearl and Garnet in the Sardonyx arc, so the chance to re-visit that could be really fascinating.

On the topic of Garnet dealing with trust issues in regards to her closest friends… let’s recall the Bismuth situation. She and Pearl are in a really similar situation there. Both of them were so overjoyed to have their old friend returned to them. Then they had to cope with their friend betraying some personal ideals they held close and nearly killing Steven. On top of all of this, the realization that Rose kept an incredible terrible and personal secret from them. For now, it looks like they’re both ‘coping’ by just repressing. Bubble Bismuth away. Don’t think about the implications of it. But that’s not healthy, and it’ll be fascinating to see their reactions when Bis finally gets to come back out.

Let’s look specifically at Garnet and Amethyst’s relationship, because that has grown a lot. In season 1 and 2, the relationship was fraught with this… hidden tension, one that pushed Amethyst into a lot of reckless behaviour. But not just Amethyst either. This is really shown in Sugilite– her flying off the handle in ‘Coach Steven’ wasn’t because Pearl left them there. That was just an excuse. Suggy was acting out all of her components shared rage and betrayal at Rose leaving them, the two having to step up in her absence, and the frustrating ways Pearl handled their grief. Things that Garnet was always feeling but refused to acknowledge, and Amethyst gave her the chance to act on. Thankfully their relationship has gotten a lot better since then. I’d love to see a Sugilite episode which could really highlight that, or even just a chance for Garnet and Amethyst’s dynamic to re-share the spotlight

Garnet still has a lot of internalized Homeworld baggage, and she still doesn’t even realize it.  Step one: her opinion in regards to Rubies. In her flashback, we see that Ruby regarded all her fellows as being basically less than clones, pretty much just one anonymous whole. Five thousand years later, and she still thinks that. The way she treated all of the Ruby-squad as interchangeable, and blamed Navy for trying to stab Steven, even though as Steven pointed out, that was Eyeball. This is… pretty unhealthy, both to herself, and potential allies. We don’t know what Garnet’s perspective on other Sapphires is, but it’ll be kind of fascinating… but we might finally have the chance. After all, Pad’s a part of the Off Colors, who also include another Ruby fusion. Meeting them might a chance for Garnet to dig into these identity issues, and sort out some important feelings in regards to where her own self worth comes from. 

And for the queen of fusion, it’s also possible she still has a complicated relationship with that– or at least, same-Gem fusion. Ruby called that, “just me, but bigger”… and as Topaz showed us, that isn’t necessarily true. Garnet is just the type of person who can get it into her head that ‘my way is the right way’, and dismiss alternatives, so it would be interesting for her to confront people who’ve decided to express their love in a way that doesn’t quite fit her own experiences.

upon seeing THIS in the thor: ragnarok trailer

They cheer.

Wait … cheer?

Fenrir slows, confused. He smells no fear, senses no rage. This is … a very strange army.

The first hand—weaponless!—reaches for him; he tenses, ready to tear the offending limb to shreds, and lets out a high little yippy whine when it pats him about the ears.

Immediately the noise is reproduced by some four or five of the nearest humans; he smells excitement; more hands are patting him.

It’s nice.

The humans crowd around him, patting him and scritching him and shuffling around to give others a chance. Voices coo, and make puppy noises, and someone catches just the right spot and he cocks his leg and scratches himself, drawing a multitude of oohs and ahhs and cheers and squees.

At some point, his hunger awakens at the scent of burnt flesh; a human has brought him what he later learns is a hot dog; he swallows it in one bite, to more cheering, and looks around hopefully for more.

It is not long before more is bought: steaks and Big Macs and bacon; it seems like much of the group has brought him a snack of some kind and was hoping for a chance to give it to him.